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Game music thesis: player community
KireGoTI
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey there,
A few months ago, I asked if anyone knew of some games with interesting music that I could use towards writing a thesis on the topic. Since then, I've followed up on those leads and done a lot of research, and the final product is pretty much put together, but my advisor has one more major task for me.
Basically, I say in my thesis that video game music forms an "imagined community," where people in different locations feel that they share experience with others because they are experiencing the same media at a distance. I'm trying to make the stronger point that this does come together as a multitude of small cultures and that players learn game music the same way that people might learn a folk song, so that it becomes shared cultural information. My advisor wants me to explain more concretely how this music forms a culture and brings together a community of players. I feel that specific examples would be really helpful.
To me, this forum feels like the place to turn. Penny Arcade links into this huge culture of gamers that somehow forms around this medium. If I'm going to find any leads, it's going to be here.
I already have some data to use, but I thought I would still field the question in this space: What do you think are some really significant examples of gamers reacting to and coming together around game music as a community?
Thanks in advance for any info!
A few months ago, I asked if anyone knew of some games with interesting music that I could use towards writing a thesis on the topic. Since then, I've followed up on those leads and done a lot of research, and the final product is pretty much put together, but my advisor has one more major task for me.
Basically, I say in my thesis that video game music forms an "imagined community," where people in different locations feel that they share experience with others because they are experiencing the same media at a distance. I'm trying to make the stronger point that this does come together as a multitude of small cultures and that players learn game music the same way that people might learn a folk song, so that it becomes shared cultural information. My advisor wants me to explain more concretely how this music forms a culture and brings together a community of players. I feel that specific examples would be really helpful.
To me, this forum feels like the place to turn. Penny Arcade links into this huge culture of gamers that somehow forms around this medium. If I'm going to find any leads, it's going to be here.
I already have some data to use, but I thought I would still field the question in this space: What do you think are some really significant examples of gamers reacting to and coming together around game music as a community?
Thanks in advance for any info!
KireGoTI on
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Posts
Damacy
Also maybe some Castlevania soundtracks
Mario
There's also a game music thread somewhere on the G+T forum, you might want to look that up
Or examples of the community doing shit? (like http://ocremix.org/, or video game music cover bands?)
Or anecdotal shit? (like how my friends in high school made a game out of humming Mega Man stage music, the "Guess The Stage Music" game?)
BRAID
BRAID!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovXo6bZqjaA
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
Anecdotal story, a guy in my glass had the Legend of Zelda "puzzle solved" jingle has a ringer on his phone, and when it went off during a lecture, I literally almost jumped out of my seat with excitement and yelled "NO WAY".
So uh, yeah. Shared culture and all that.
VGL is a good example.
I'd also mention that there are quite a few bands that play some or a lot of video game music. My favorite is Contraband (they have a few Youtube videos). They have someone play Contra behind them while the band plays the music from the game.
And a couple of anecdotal things... I have some friends who had a band at one point. During a practice session they all of a sudden burst into the Halo theme. Their guitarist does NOT play Halo, or really any video games. (They also played Dancing Mad from FFVI at a couple of gigs. I couldn't get them to play Devil's Lab, though...).
Then there are things like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSBIAGCulDw
Mostly community stuff, but anecdotal stuff is also good. Also, since the approach is ethnomusigraphical, opinions and personal anecdotes are also helpful.
It's actually not the thesis of the paper as a whole, although I agree it makes a great topic on its own (in fact, when my advisor pointed it out in basically an "explore this" fashion, I completely balked; I've already read whole books on the subject). I actually quote Jerry's March 29 post and credit him for the concept, which I wouldn't have been able to express so cleanly without his words. It's one of my favorite things I've ever read on the site.
Of course. That's the most obvious thing, by far. However, I'm trying to compare video game music culture to folk music culture, so I'm more interested in incidents where, for instance, you'd be at a con and someone would start singing a video game theme and everyone would join in (I've never made it out to PAX, but this is the sort of thing that happens there, in my dreams).
Actually, it's Ocarina of Time that gets me on the topic to begin with. Koji Kondo loves his themes, and since gamers get to actually play the themes repeatedly on the ocarina, they're really strongly enforced in the mind. Not to mention that the songs in Zelda are some of the best out there. I feel like it's the best example of shared culture between gamers.
This.
Still Alive was ridiculous in how well it penetrated. We sang it in a pub basement for the Way of the Rodent Awards in early 2008, and few people needed lyric sheets. It was the first game song released for Rock Band, and for free.
EDIT: Look at some concert video for a JoCo concert at PAX. The crowd lurches in time as zombies for Re: Your Brains.
@gamefacts - Totally and utterly true gaming facts on the regular!
Also, how about chiptune remixes of pop songs, like the 8-bit Thriller? Using musical instrumentation from outdated videogaming hardware to recreate cultural artefacts like MJ's horror classic is almost like bridging the gap between gaming and mainstream, yet you need awareness of both to be able to appreciate a piece like this.
The foremost examples when it comes to SNES games would be Secret of Mana and the Donkey Kong Country games (especially part 2). Some other examples where the soundtrack continues to play an important role in their reception: Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, A Link to the Past, Castlevania IV, Terranigma (never released in the US, but has a following in Europe).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPGBILvxAWU